


of rosemary stems and calendula heads

by VacuumTan



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Falling In Love, Flowers, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, in fact this has been dubbed an anti-drama-fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 21:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11654637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VacuumTan/pseuds/VacuumTan
Summary: “I don’t serve customers,” he said with a serene expression, tying lillies together. “I serve people- their lives, their stories.” Then, he paused.“I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if you'd rather read this story in smaller, individual chapters, please check it out on [fanfiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12218046/1/of-rosemary-stems-and-calendula-heads). due to the format in which i post over there, i also update it more frequently.
> 
> in any case, thanks for reading!

Kagamine Len had never been one for routine, really.

 

Sure, he went to uni whenever he had class, worked his never changing shifts, always went to the same grocery stores and bought the same things and _maybe_ he also had a fixed bedtime. So what. It wasn’t routine as much as it was a neccesary evil in order to live like a decent human being while attending university.

 

But despite all that, there was one part of his day that had become an everyday habit by now.

 

At exactly 6.45 every morning, he’d grab his keys and his phone (alongside his favourite pair of overly expensive headphones) and go for a casual jog. He’d head two blocks westwards, would run a few circles around the ponds in the park before heading back home a lane over. Had Kagamine Len been a simpler person, he would have started his jogging-routine out of pure concern for his own health. He, however, wasn’t that simple a person and physical activity so early in the morning wasn’t quite his cup of tea, either.

 

God knows what had motivated him to go for a run in the first place, but the morning he had taken off had turned out to be one so ridiculously fateful that it made him exercise well before he needed to get out of bed in order to not miss class; a tiny florist shop at the corner of the lane leading back home was what had him brave any kind of weather and all the sleepiness in the world.

 

It was a romantic little store that managed to smell better than the bakery two houses further down the road, but that was hardly what kept Len coming there. Besides it still being closed at the asscrack of dawn, he had never particularly cared for flowers. Although he supposed they were nice enough, what really made him come back every day was the store’s owner.

 

Always looking ready to murder someone, the guy in question probably wouldn’t strike anybody as someone who surrounded himself with the beauty of flowers all day long. In fact, he didn’t look like someone who surrounded himself with anything. He came across as bored and slightly upset, never one to get involved with others, which was probably why Len had decided to go bug him whenever he could in the first place.

 

They had met on That Fateful Day (TM) when Len had almost run into him while he was busy emptying buckets of water into the gutter before his shop and, as an apology for nearly stomping him, Len had offered to help with the water. The guy had attempted to cook him alive with only a glare before, at last, shrugging and allowing it. He’d introduced himself as Piko and only ever threw insults and snide remarks at Len, but he’d borne with it and even offered to help him out some other time again. Piko had, in turn, told him to come by every day and do whatever chores he himself didn’t feel like doing and of course he’d taken it to heart.

 

Nevertheless, Piko had been shocked when Len had dropped by the next day.

 

And that was the whole reason why Len had settled into the routine of going for a jog in the morning. He couldn’t tell what exactly made him help Piko- he really couldn’t- but somehow, he felt compelled to make his usually sullen, miserable expressions a little less sullen and miserable. Most of the time, he made the other feel worse, but he could deal with that much.

 

And deal with it he would.

 

* * *

 

 

The one thing Len truly came to love about the florist shop was the pleasant smell that was a mixture of differently scented flowers, fertilisers, earth and cut stems. It was alive and natural, refreshing even, especially when taken in so early into the day.

 

“Good morning!” he yelled into the seemingly empty store as he opened the thin glass door with a chime of the bell in the treshold. Despite currently being out of sight, Piko had to be somewhere, either in the back or hidden behind some shelf or another. Only a response would tell.

 

“There’s nothing good about mornings at all,” came a muffled reply from below the counter. Len fully stepped inside the shop and let the door fall closed behind him with a ‘ding’ before heading towards the source of the voice. Bending over the smooth, clean surface that was the slab of stone on top of the counter, he grinned down at the figure crouched below it.

 

Piko sat on his heels, his fingers tangled into a mess of threads (or thin wires, really), his brow furrowed in anger. Raising his hands for Len to examine more closely, he practically growled. “These fucking things just spilled out a few minutes ago and I’m about to kill a man.”

 

“I’m not in a good position then, am I?” Len asked and pulled back in order to round the counter and sit down next to Piko who frowned deeply at him. “Can you get your fingers out?”

 

“If I could, I would have done that already. The flowers need tending to, after all,” Piko replied and glared at his hands. Gently grabbing his wrists, Len looked at the mess around the shopkeeper’s fingers. Truly, the wires were wrapped around each other in so many places that he, too, couldn’t tell where any of them began or ended.

 

Seeing no saving the situation, Len got up and searched the countertop for a pair of scissors or clippers. “Do you need these wires that badly?” he asked, peering under a heap of foil and paper.

 

“It’s just one really long wire,” Piko corrected bitterly. “But no, I still have a roll of this stuff in the back. It’s fine.”

 

Len nodded and, as if on cue, finally found a pair of rose clippers behind a large roll of sticky tape. Crouching back down, he held out the clippers for Piko to see who, in turn, offered his hands to him. “How did you manage to do this, anyways? You’re usually so nimble with your fingers,” Len chatted idly while he snapped the wires.

 

A sigh escaped the florist. “I don’t know, man. One second I wrap it around my hand to keep it nice and straight, the next moment I’m caught up in this... predicament,” he said, watching as his digits were freed one by one.

 

 Several clippings and minutes later, Piko had- in a rare display of gratitude- fixed Len a cup of inhumanly strong coffee which he, with regards to neither his schedule nor his stomach, drank slowly whilst keeping up some pointless conversation with the ever busy shopkeeper. It was strange though, just staying there without helping out. To Len, it had definitely been a first.

 

It was also on that day that he consciously realised how much he enjoyed Piko’s company.

 

* * *

 

 

As days began to get shorter and  the weather got colder than what a combo of thick sweatpants and a warm hoodie could ward off, Len’s daily jogs turned into early morning walks. Quite brisk walks once the temperature dropped below zero, but, nevertheless, he always managed to arrive at the flowershop on time.

 

Since early November, the whole store had turned into a sea of poinsettia and decorative christmas orbs, smelling like an advent wreath rather than the fresh smell Len had grown accustomed to. He didn’t hate it, per se, but it was different all the same.

 

Piko had, on more than one occasion, stated just how much he hated the holiday season, going on about how they were in _Japan_ , for chrissake, so most people weren’t even Christians. Len, in turn, found himself wondering why- of all people- the owner of a business complained about the commercialisation of a holiday. But for all he wondered, he was certain he’d never find the right answer, anyways.

 

Piko was peculiar like that, after all.

 

When the first of December rolled around, Len had bought an advent calendar for his favourite sourpuss of a shopkeeper who, predictably, wasn’t all that happy about the gesture. (Nevertheless, he hung it on the wall of his shop.) “You’re so bothersome,” he had said around the first door’s chocolate, trying his hardest not to appreciate the taste.

 

As a punishment, Piko made Len clean the floor below the displays of poinsettia (and hey, who knew that these things dropped little black seeds en masse?) and sent him home without giving him any of his murder-coffee. That, in turn, left Len freezing on his way back to his flat and before he knew it, he had caught a cold.

 

His sister, Rin, had berated him for it, a day later, as she shoved another spoonful of disgustingly bitter cough-drops past his lips.

 

But after two more days, Len was as good as new (albeit with a stuffy nose) and so, he walked the familiar track to Piko’s shop. He half-expected to be scolded for neglecting his not-really-official part-time work the second he passed the threshold, but what he found instead was quite the opposite.

 

As soon as the ‘ding’ of the door opening broke the quiet inside the store, Len was greeted by the sound of hasty, heavy footfalls and the smell of chamomile. Barely ten seconds later, Piko emerged from the back of the shop, cheeks flushed and breathing a bit too heavily, whilst holding a bright pink mug with kitschy roses plastered all over it.

 

“Where _were_ you?” he hissed, smoothing down his somewhat ruffled hair. He looked livid and, suddenly, Len felt at fault. Before he could apologise, Piko went on, “Do you know how late I ran these past few days, just because you decided not to show up? And, more importantly, did you think I wouldn’t _care_ that you just disappeared without as much as a single word?”

 

“Sorry,” Len muttered and ducked his head. “I caught a cold and ran a fever those past two days. My sister didn’t let me drop by.”

 

Within seconds, Piko’s expression changed from anger to something Len thought looked almost sympathetic. “Oh,” he breathed and placed his mug on the counter. “That’s... um. I’m sorry.”

 

With a soft little sigh, he beckoned Len over. “You don’t- you needn’t help out today. Just take the tea and sit down somewhere where you won’t bother me,” he instructed and pushed the mug towards Len who, with a small, appreciative smile, took it.

 

“Thanks,” he said.

 

“Whatever,” Piko replied.

 

And as Len sat down on a small chair behind the counter, lukewarm chamomile tea in that ugly pink mug warming his fingers, he noticed how the advent calender hadn’t been opened past the first day, yet.

 

* * *

 

 

As much as he liked to believe he was, Kagamine Len was, in fact, _not_ a man of his principles. While he never put off work and always brushed his teeth the way his dentist had shown him, one well-played pair of puppy eyes could, on a bad day, probably get him to sell his own mother.

 

“Could you please, please, _please_ pick up a nice bouquet for me first thing in the morning?” Miku had asked him over dinner one night, her eyes big and round and definitely aiming for Len’s every weakness. “I totally forgot that our anniversary is tomorrow, and now everything is closed and I gotta work an early shift but didn’t get Luka anything. So pretty please?”

 

Len had, of course, agreed to get Miku flowers, if only because that’s what good childhood friends who happened to be sort-of-friends with a florist do, and the elation on Miku’s face was enough to drive home the point that Len had made the right decision.

 

Which was why, an hour before Piko usually opened the shop, Len stood in front of his counter, wringing his hands guiltily whilst wondering how to breach the subject. Before he came to a conclusion, however, Piko had already shoved a decorative basket filled with Christmas ornaments at him. “Stop wasting space and put that on the table next to the white poinsettias. And maybe put some of the ornaments wherever they’ll look pretty,” he ordered, finger extended and pointing, and, nodding dumbly, Len did as instructed.

 

Which, in hindsight, hadn’t brought him any closer to fulfilling his duty; rather than that, it had given him more time for stalling. So, while hooking an ornament into some tinsel-laden atrocity, with his tone as casual and conversational as possible, Len asked, “Say, Piko, do you maybe have the time to whip up a bouquet for me?”

 

As soon as he’d said that, a (surprisingly heavy) chunk of crunched up carton was flung at his head. Piko first glared, then huffed. “Do you know how much work goes into tying a non-standard bouquet, you ass?” he growled, yet stopped whatever he’d been doing in order to march behind the counter.

 

Len, feeling bashful, could do little more than scratch the back of his rapidly reddening neck with an awkward chuckle. “Sorry, I know you have to set up everything for the day and all. I didn’t expect you to be able to make me one, anyways, so-“

 

“Nu-uh, stop that,” Piko interrupted while piling his work utensils on top of the counter. Surprised, Len allowed for his mouth to snap shut. Apparently satisfied with the reaction he’d elicited, the florist puffed out his chest and smirked. “I never said I wouldn’t fix you one,” he said. “What do you need it for?”

 

* * *

 

 

The first time Len saw Piko smile, it was by chance and hadn’t been directed at him, either. He had been running errands for his sister when mere coincidence had led him down the familiar route of his morning jogs/walks. And as he passed the store, he’d of course looked through the wide windows to catch a glimpse of the shopkeeper. But when he finally did see him, he was immediately glued to the spot.

 

Passing an old lady a nice bouquet, he was smiling brightly, leaning close to her as if he were telling her some sort of secret. In turn, the lady smiled back at him, chatting away without a care in the world and just some flowers in her arms. The entire scene irked Len- everything from the bright expression down to the voluntary proximity to a stranger seemed odd when Piko did it.

 

And yet, it was mesmerising. Piko was a pale presence among colourful flowers and mismatched furniture at all times, but Len had hardly seen him standing still amidst it all, smiling serenely against a backdrop of festive, seasonal colours and glitter. No, the Piko he’d come to know was a bustling presence, always double-checking if everything was in its rightful place and then checking once more, just to be sure. He wore his frowns like expensive couture and the only upward-tilts of his lips Len had seen thus far happened when he was smirking at him, all condescension and mean-spirited amusement.

 

Maybe it was Len’s fault that he never made Piko smile. It was a far-fetched thought and one that was, quite honestly, not very likely to be true, either, but for a second, he entertained the possibility.

 

A few paces ahead of him, the old lady with the bouquet (which was now wrapped in pretty paper to protect it from the cold) exited the shop, keeping a little grin on her lips. She seemed content, and Len couldn’t help but wonder if that was what Piko smiled for, ultimately- if he smiled, just so his customers could retain their own smiles. Somehow, it was oddly befitting of the irritable, but by no means unlikeable, florist.

 

The question remained on Len’s mind until he got home, and even then, he still kept wondering.

 

* * *

 

 

The last few days before Christmas had, apparently, worn Piko’s patience painfully thin. Len had entered the store only ten minutes ago, and Piko had already chugged two mugs of his murder coffee. Currently, he was on his third.

 

“I’m going insane, Len,” he muttered against the surface of the counter, his nose and lips awkwardly smushed against it. His right hand blindly reached for the handle of his mug, but instead of picking it up, he knocked it over, the coffee spilling from the countertop all the way down to the floor. The mug followed suit, smashing into the ground and breaking into countless, bright pink, rose-patterned pieces.

 

Piko’s eyes followed his late drink’s trajectory, but instead of throwing a fit, like Len had expected him to, he simply slumped in his seat behind the counter and sighed. “Life is meaningless and I want to die,” he groaned. Wordlessly, Len went into the back to fetch some paper towels and a broom.

 

When he emerged once more, he found that Piko hadn’t moved an inch. “Come on, you’ll get coffee in your hair if you keep lying there,” he told him gently. Sluggishly, Piko sat up at that and held out his hand as if asking for some of the paper towels Len had just fetched. Len, of course, complied.

 

“I liked that mug,” Piko said as he started wiping the coffee on the counter, making some of it slosh over the edge. Len hummed in acknowledgement and placed some towels on the little puddle of tar-like coffee. Piko frowned. “Why’d you throw these on top of the shards, too?” he asked.

 

Len snorted and smiled at him. “I don’t know, honestly. It seemed like the best option, but I now realise that it’s kinda stupid.”

 

And Piko- Piko threw his head back and laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ll be closing the shop for a few days after New Year’s,” Piko told Len one morning whilst touching up a small, custom bouquet that was to be bought right after the shop’s official opening time. Despite that, business had slowed down considerably after Christmas Eve. Len could tell as much by the lack of tenseness in Piko’s shoulders- he’d been alternating between being stiff as a board and slumped on the nearest surface these past few days.

 

So it was a given that he’d want some peace and quiet after the holiday rush. “You deserve as much,” Len replied easily, watching the florist tuck some additional greenery into the bouquet.

 

Piko blinked, then pursed his lips. “Is that right,” he murmured, pale lashes casting shadows upon the dark bags still under his eyes. And for the first time since he’d met him, Len realised just how _frail_ Piko looked, stripped off of all his usual ferocity and underlying zeal. Suddenly, he was neither an ethereal being, pale like light among nature’s colourful beauty, nor the force of nature with liquid passion running though his veins Len knew him to be. No, suddenly- suddenly, he was just thin limbs with sickly white skin stretched across them; he was glassy aquamarine eyes and routinely working hands.

 

And it was kind of terrifying.

 

“How about you finish today’s orders and call it a day?” Len asked, and it was tentative, because he worried too much. He worried that one wrong word would cause the thin porcelain that made up Piko’s body these days to crack.

 

But it didn’t. Instead, the florist’s eyes landed on him, as soft as the tiny little smile gracing his lips. “I could do that,” he replied, directing his gaze back towards the flowers, yet never letting the gentle expression slip. Len couldn’t help but smile, too.

 

“You should,” he told Piko, who hummed softly and, with the tired, unguarded quirk of his lips and the late-rising winter sun’s light dying his pale hair a glowing orange, looked more beautiful than anything Len had ever seen.


	2. Chapter 2

True to his word, Piko ended up closing the shop down until the seventh. It shook up Len’s daily routine quite a bit (but it wasn’t a routine at all, he told himself, because he didn’t _do_ routines) but he was on break, anyways, so it wouldn’t hurt him to laze around just a bit. And maybe study some. Rin was nagging him quite a bit about that.

 

Nevertheless, the new year came, he had another year of life under his belt. On the first of January, him and Rin took a quick trip to the local shrine, buying themselves a fortune each. (‘Great Blessing,’ Len’s had said and Rin, upon seeing it, had crumpled her own ‘Great Curse’ with severe prejudice. “It’s all made-up anyways,” she had insisted with a huff and Len couldn’t help but laugh.)

 

On the third, they went shopping and ended up buying some of the leftover Christmas candy that was now fifty percent off. While leaving the store, a sky-coloured mug caught Len’s eye and, on a whim, he ended up buying it. Rin only raised a brow at the admittedly ugly flower pattern, but didn’t comment on it any further. (Len, at least, thought Piko might appreciate it.)

 

And so, the first week of January went by quietly, without incident.

 

Len had never felt so stressed in his life.

 

* * *

 

 

The shop, Len mused, was different during business hours.

 

Even when there weren’t any customers around, everything looked different, bathed in brighter sunlight or even the soft yellow of street-lights. The air smelled different too; the scent of cut stems was stronger, near overwhelming, whereas the underlying note of freshly brewed chamomile tea was completely absent.

 

Currently, Piko was tending to a man, tall and clad in a nice suit, going over his order in hushed tones. Len could do little but watch the florist’s face light up and then turn pensive, over and over again, from where he stood, awkwardly holding onto the box containing the mug he’d bought. (The whole thing looked like a rectangular accident, rather than a present, even after his and Rin’s combined efforts to make it look nice. At least it had a bow on top.)

 

“And to what do I owe the honour, Mister Kagamine?” was the question that ripped Len out of his trance and he was surprised to find that suit-man had, apparently, left without him even noticing. So he just blinked at Piko, who looked at him with a smug grin and a hand on his hip.

 

“I wanted to—“ Len began, and, because his brain was apparently dead, simply thrust out the mangled-looking present. Piko stared at it, scrunching his nose, before gingerly plucking it from Len’s hands and shaking it. “It’s a belated Christmas present, if you so will,” he said softly and Piko’s expression became even more pinched.

 

“I don’t need useless stuff,” he replied, then stared at it. “What’s with that wrapping? Did you get a toddler to do it for you?”

 

“Rin and I both gave our best,” Len said and _maybe_ \- but just maybe- pouted a bit for dramatic effect. “We aren’t professionals at wrapping things.”

 

Piko snorted and slipped a finger between the folds of the paper, tearing it. “Are you seriously getting lippy with me? How—oh,” he halted, and stared at the box, covered in photographs of its contents, in what Len thought to be awe. “You got me a new mug.”

 

Even if he’d tried to, Len couldn’t fight the smile begging to take over his face. “I thought you’d like it. Especially after breaking your old one,” he told him, and he felt lightheaded as he kept grinning like an idiot.

 

But Piko just scowled. “It’s ugly as sin,” he said, and that statement came as a punch to the gut for Len. Yet, before he could apologise, with a barely-there quirk of his lips and mirth in his eyes, Piko met Len’s gaze head-on. “I love it. Thanks, Len.”

 

“Didn’t you call it ugly just now, though?” Len croaked out, entirely bewildered, because, really, disbelief was a pretty mild word. Yet, Piko’s small smile just turned into a smirk.

 

“Of course it is. But I think it’s a good ugly,” he answered. Then, he paused, opening the box and slipping the mug out to examine it properly. And, much to Len’s horror, the colour in the photos had, apparently, been wrong all along.

 

“It’s pink.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What makes you decide what to put into your bouquets?” Len asked Piko, one lazy and slow morning while sipping tea from Pink Atrocity 2.0. He’d meant for the question to be innocent and conversational, yet the glare Piko shot him in reply made him feel like he’d just committed some sort of mortal sin.

 

“Do you have eyes in that head of yours, Kagamine?” he grit out and ripped off a piece of sticky tape with excessive vigour. “Colours. Size. General aestheticism. You name it, it plays into it.”

 

Len found himself frowning at that. “But don’t all flowers have meanings?” he asked, trying hard not to grin when he saw Piko twitch just a bit.

 

“Well, aren’t you a well-educated little brat,” he exhaled. Then, he frowned and pointed at his flower-buckets. “Fetch me four of those orange lillies from over there and I might explain a thing or two to you.”

 

With a grin, Len set down his mug and trotted over to the buckets. He glanced around the variety of flowers before him, idly nibbling on his chapped lips. “These’re lillies, right?” he asked, stepping out of the way so Piko could see past him, and pointed at some fairly large, somewhat flat blossoms with few petals and prominent pistils. Piko grinned, yet pretended to hide it behind a hand.

 

“Sure looks like it to me,” he answered. “Now you just gotta find the orange ones. Think you can do that?”

 

Len blew him a raspberry at that and picked four orange lillies from the bucket before laying them down on top of the counter. “There you go,” he said and picked his tea up again. “Now tell me about flower-meanings in relation to your work.”

 

“You’re being a little shit,” the florist chided, yet his voice wasn’t devoid of fondness. He picked up the lillies and began cutting the lowest part of their stems at a steep angle. “It’s basically like this: if someone orders a bouquet for a special occasion, they want to convey a message. It’s my job to translate their feelings into flowers,” Piko explained, expression going soft whilst working. “Whether the recipient gets it or not is another question altogether, though.”

 

“Is that why you always chat up your customers so willingly?” Len blurted, then, and maybe he gave away the fact that he’d watched Piko work during business hours already- smiling, frowning, pensive Piko, so detached from his usual self.

 

But Piko only relaxed even further into his task, memories and thoughts associated with the question making his eyes crinkle at the edges with fondness. Idly, he cut off some wire. “I don’t serve customers,” he said with a serene expression,  tying lillies together. “I serve people- their lives, their stories.” Then, he paused.

 

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”

 

Thoughtfully, Len stated into his tea. “It makes you feel at ease, right? Indulging people and expressing feelings in their stead,” he asked. Piko halted his ministrations, but then nodded. “I wonder why you have such an awful personality, then.”

 

\-- admittedly, Len maybe deserved getting cuffed over the head for that last remark.

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe Piko had already forgotten, by the time Len brought it up again. “What flower would suit me?” he’d asked, genuinely curious, and Piko had blinked at him, surprised.

 

“Are we talking meanings?” he asked back, and went about scrubbing a particularly nasty speck of dirt off his counter, his hair swaying in tandem with his movements. Len just hummed an affirmative and stared at the whorl on top of Piko’s head, watching a prominent cowlick bob back and forth.

 

The florist huffed out a frustrated breath before- without warning or anything- throwing his cleaning rag right into Len’s face. “You take over, I’ll think,” he said, as though that was a compromise at all, and disappeared into the back before Len could as much as protest. Which, of course, meant that he was left with little choice but to begin scrubbing, lest he illicit Piko’s wrath.

 

A few minutes passed, and when Piko reemerged, it was with two mugs of tea in his hands; one was the familiar pink one, which Piko took a sip from, but the other, Len hadn’t seen before. It was a subdued yellow with an orange cartoon lion printed to the front, and, more importantly, it now stood before Len, beckoning him to have a drink. “You got a new mug,” he said and picked up the ceramic to inspect it.

 

Piko made a noncommittal noise in reply and shrugged. “I didn’t want to keep swapping spit with your freeloading ass anymore,” he answered before setting his tea down and checking for the stain on the counter. “You got it off.”

 

Len grinned and puffed out his chest, all exaggerated pride. “Sure did,” he laughed, “I needed to show you that I’m not just freeloading, after all.” That comment earned him a raspberry blown his way, but Len just laughed and took a sip of his tea- fennel, today.

 

A few minutes passed in companionable almost-silence, until Len found himself getting antsy at last. “Hey, Piko?” he began, staring into his now empty mug. Piko hummed some sort of acknowledgement and, well, that was as good an incentive as any. “Did you do some thinking?”

 

That all but earned him a deadpan stare. “I don’t know about you, but I do quite a bit of thinking all day long,” Piko replied, voice flat and entirely unimpressed. Len had a hard time figuring out if Piko was just fucking with him, then, or if he’d genuinely forgotten his question from earlier that morning; his curiosity in Piko’s work had only grown over time, but the personal layer to all of it was honestly the most interesting aspect to it yet.

 

“No, no,” Len said, after what must have been only a second of doubting. “You said you’d think of a flower meaning that suits me. And, well. I’m curious is all,” he went on, vaguely bashful, if the heat rising up the back of his neck was anything to go by.

 

“Oh,” was all the reply he got at first. Then, Piko looked around, as though the answer was written somewhere. “I guess that’s a no-brainer,” he said. “Calendulae.”

 

Len fixed him with a nonplussed stare. “You do realise that I don’t even know what they look like, right?” he asked, and Piko shook his head, condescending smile tugging at his lips.

 

“Len, Len, Len...” he tutted, bangs swishing against his forehead. “For how many months have you been coming here, again?” He was all dramatic exaggeration, Len knew, but somehow, his words still seemed patronising. He still resisted the urge to pout.

 

“A calendula is somewhere between yellow and red in colour,” Piko explained, mockingly patient. “And because of that, it’s associated with the sunrise. There you go with your explaination.”

 

Len frowned. “Why would that suit me, though? Because I come here early?” he asked, gaze falling to the new mug; its colour scheme suddenly seemed offensive. “It’s a pretty abstract meaning, anyways. Does it mean anything else?”

 

The florist snorted at that, although Len imagined his face to be just a tad pinker than usual. “Nothing significant,” he replied curtly and tucked some loose strands of hair behind his ear. “It’s all about your masochistic tendencies that deliver you to my doorstep every day at the asscrack of dawn. Such an early riser, damnit.”

 

Len smiled to himself. “You never complain about it, though.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What made you want to become a florist, anyways?” Len asked into the lull of a slow morning, the pitter-patter of the icy rain against the windows and Piko’s lethargic preparations for the day the only prominent sounds in the shop. Piko huffed and put down the wire he was busy disentangling.

 

“I had no idea what to do with my life,” he replied, sounding surprisingly detached. “My mom used to love flowers and a local flowershop was hiring, so I applied and went through with it.”

 

Len blinked, not having expected such a straight-forward answer at all. Then, however, a realisation sunk in. “Your mom ‘used to love’ flowers?” he asked, wide-eyed and afraid of having touched upon a sensitive subject. Piko just nodded, expression unreadable. Len felt a bit like screaming in frustration, maybe. “What happened to her?”

 

At that, the florist shrugged, but his expression went grave. The next second, his lips started trembling and Len could have sworn his heart stopped beating right at that moment. So it _was_ something bad, after all. He probably made Piko relive some bad memories and—

 

“Hay fever,” Piko replied curtly and turned away  from Len at the speed of light in a vain attempt to hide his growing smirk, all under the guise of going back to his wire.

 

“You’re awful,” Len muttered. Piko snorted and spun around again, his grin so wide, it looked as though it was splitting his face in half.

 

“You totally expected a sad backstory just now, didn’t you?” he asked blithely, eyes wide and shiny. Len silently crossed his arms and stuck his nose up in the air with a huff. Piko laughed. “You’re such a loser, not even denying it,” he said, voice airy and bemused.

 

“I’m sorry for even _trying_ to be sensitive,” Len shot back, pointedly glaring at Piko as if to emphasise how offended he was. But the florist just laughed- a happy sound, chime-like and easy- and maybe that made Len’s resolve crumble, just a bit.

 

(Perhaps he even started laughing along, at some point; he’d deny it afterwards, though.)

 

* * *

 

 

The days passed quickly, sometimes, but only as Len was helping Piko restock his roses for Valentine’s Day did he realise just _how_ quickly it had really gone by. Naturally, the holiday had Piko a nervous wreck once more, but the fact that he ended up making nothing but, as he’d put it, “standard kitsch for your _dearest_ schnookums”, apparently left him somewhat more relaxed than the custom bouquet madness that had driven him up the wall around Christmas.

 

It struck Len as odd, how condescendingly Piko looked upon romantic gestures, given his choice of career, as well as his love for the more emotional aspects of the job. Maybe he just didn’t care much for love; maybe he’s had bad experiences along the way. Len was curious, but also convinced that he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of the florist, even if he asked.

 

Piko was a strange being, either way. Three days to Valentine’s and here he was, back to chugging his coffee from hell while trying to salvage a roll of heart-patterned wrapping paper that had had an encounter with one of the water buckets several minutes ago. Len supposed it was all part of his charm; after all, he somehow possessed the ability to casually walk the line between ethereal beauty and angry cynism and somehow make it _work_. In a way, Len admired how contradictory he was; how he was soft and harsh, how he was graceful and clumsy, how he was dedicated and careless, well-versed and crude, kind and spiteful, bright and gloomy.

 

And, well, maybe it was the pink colour-scheme dominating the store at the moment, or the smell of the roses, or maybe just the fact that his brain had just then caught up, but at that exact moment, Len realised something _grand_ in the most underwhelming manner possible.

 

“Oh,” he said, then carried on as usual.

 

* * *

 

 

It was kind of strange, admitting it out loud.

 

Len was currently staring himself down in the bathroom mirror of his and Rin’s appartment, some odd minutes past six, clad only in a bathrobe with his wet hair up in a very sad excuse for a bun. Outwardly, he was the same as always. He had kind of expected to find a different, unfamiliar look in his eyes; had expected his neutral expressions to suddenly look happier; had expected his skin to magically get clean. But nothing like that had happened.

 

Because, why would it? He had a crush; a mundane, casual crush, stemming from a mundane, casual friendship. It was honestly somewhat underwhelming, the reality of it.

 

Instead of a romance novel’s burning passion- fiercer than a tempest, more destructive than an uncontainable inferno- all he got was a very real, tender heat- not a storm, but a gentle breeze, not an all-consuming fire, but the warm little flame flickering atop a candlestick.

 

It simmered under his skin and warmed him up, ever so slightly- it had been doing that for months, slowly growing more and more prominent.

 

And so, it had become the truth; and in time, he’d have to say it out loud.

 

“I like him,” he told his reflection seriously, holding his own gaze. The Len in the mirror looked surprised for a brief second, before smiling the smile Len felt in his cheeks. He could do this. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but whenever the time came. “I really, really like him,” he tried again, giddier than before. “I actually lo—“

 

He choked on _that_ word. Maybe that was taking things too far. Mirror Len apparently thought so too, looking quite constipated. “Alright, but I _do_ like him.”

 

“Good for you.”

 

(Len did not yell bloody murder.)

 

(Len totally did yell bloody murder.)

 

He whipped his head around towards the door, staring at it with wide eyes. “Can’t you, like, knock? Let a man have his privacy?” he squeaked out, voice going shrill with embarrassment.

 

From beyond the door, he could hear his sister sigh. “I am standing in front of a locked door and you’ve been loudly talking to yourself in there. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t even count as eavesdropping,” she said, voice level and unimpressed.

 

With his ears burning in embarrassment, Len unlocked the door and pushed it open, the residual steam of his shower escaping into the hallway. Rin was leaning against the wall across from him, arms crossed in front of her chest. “You were talking about your flower boy, weren’t you?” she asked, not sounding judgemental in the slightest. Slowly, Len nodded; might as well. Rin smiled a bit at that. “Took you long enough.”

 

Bashfully, Len looked at the wooden flooring just past the threshold of the bathroom. “I probably knew since a whole while ago,” he said, ever so softly. “I just couldn’t put a name to it.”

 

Rin hummed thoughtfully and pushed herself away from the wall. “I didn’t know you also swung that way, though,” she said, tone neutral. Len met her eye and merely shrugged. That earned him a grin from his sister. “With Miku and Luka around, we wouldn’t think of gay couples as weird, after all,” Rin laughed and side-stepped past Len to enter the bathroom.

 

Just before closing the door, she turned around again and looked at her brother through the small crack she’d left open. “Let’s talk when you get back from checking up on your sweetheart. And invite him to our annual pizza dinner on the fourteenth, if you wanna,” she said, then let the door fall shut behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t you have a girlfriend to bug today?” Piko asked while absently writing a sign that, no, business hours weren’t extended, even if it was Valentine’s Day. The red sharpie that occassionally died in the middle of a word really drove the point home.

 

Len slumped against the counter, his mug filled with not tea, but the glorified tar Piko called coffee. Stupid late night study sessions. “I don’t,” he replied and looked up at the florist, desperately trying to swallow a vague feeling of inadequacy and bashfulness. “The last time I was seriously dating someone was in high school.”

 

( _“How about you? Are you currently seeing anyone? Have you ever dated anyone at all? Would you date a guy? Maybe a blond one? With blue eyes? Slightly taller than you? Ready to put up with your moods no matter what? Would you accept if that hypothetical guy asked you out?”_ )

 

Piko whistled, as though impressed. “That’s kinda sad,” he said, putting down his marker to admire his more than a little crooked handiwork. Len gave him an offended look, knowing that Piko didn’t pay him any attention.

 

“I’d been dating her all throughout middle and high school, you know,” he stated. At that, Piko looked back up, eyes wide in surprise. Perhaps Len felt a bit smug, then. “We broke up because she moved all the way to Tokyo for uni. We still text each other, sometimes.”

 

“ _Okay_ , I give,” Piko said, mockingly throwing his hands up in surrender, “not sad.” He got out a roll of sticky tape and stuck some to the corners of his sign. “Now be a good boy and put this in the window.”

 

Len sighed and took the sheet from Piko’s hands, minding the tape, and got up. He hung it above the sign stating the shop’s regular business hours and turned around when he heard Piko snigger behind his back. “What is it?” he asked, feeling oddly drained.

 

But Piko just grinned, bright and bemused; because he’d been doing that a lot, lately, hadn’t he? – Smiling, that was. Len wanted to take offense, what with it being at his expense, most of the time, but Piko’s smiles were just that _beautiful_. Well, and honestly, he’d pretty much been conversing through teasing and insults since day one, so it was hardly unusual at that point.

 

Len just shook his head, in the end, and made his way back to the counter. Piko hid his grin behind the rim of his mug, eyes shining with mirth. “Miku and Luka are coming over in the evening,” Len said as he sat back down. He inhaled, then, as if to summon all his courage, and met Piko’s gaze head-on. “If you have nothing to do and no one to spend today with, wanna come over, too? We’re making pizza.”

 

The florist blinked a few times, clearly caught off guard by the question. A second later, he huffed a breath, crossed his arms and frowned. Len immediately felt like he’d overstepped a boundary he hadn’t been allowed to toe at in the first place. What if Piko was dating someone after all? (And wouldn’t _that_ be disappointing? Len didn’t want to consider the possibility.)

 

Piko huffed. “What, just because I’m single, you think inviting me to your little family dinner on Valentine’s is the way to go?” he said after a pregnant pause, sharp eyes trained on Len as if to gauge even his subtlest shift of expression. But Len just pursed his lips and kept the rest of his face deliberately neutral, nodding once, and apparently, that was all Piko needed to hear. A dry smile spread across his face. “I’m getting free pizza!” he hollered in mock-excitement, fist pumping the air for good measure.

 

“Are you even for real?” Len laughed, his bad mood beginning to settle into something much lighter; or maybe that concentrated caffeine was just finally getting into his blood stream.

 

“Oh, I’m the _realest_ ,” Piko replied, leaning across the counter to get up in Len’s face, expression exaggeratedly sultry. Len snorted a laugh and, feeling confident enough in their relationship after all these months to know it wouldn’t break anything, reached out a hand to flatly smush it against Piko’s face. Who, in turn, let out a strangled little noise of protest, but Len was laughing too hard at that point to even do anything about it.

 

Which was probably why, when he didn’t remove his hand immediately, he was rewarded with a wet feeling against his open palm. In his shock, he pulled back, only to find Piko smirking at him, tongue poking out from between his lips. “Did you seriously just _lick_ me?” Len asked, and Piko’s smirk widened. “Gross.”

 

“Pick me up at six thirty and get me something to eat then, loverboy,” the florist said, as though that was the proper thing to say after licking someone’s hand. (In actuality, Len didn’t know whether there was a conversational protocol to follow in case of acute hand-licking.)

 

Either way, he couldn’t win, anyways. If Piko had moved the conversation in that direction already, then he just had to follow along. The notion brought a smile to his face. “Alright, six thirty,” he agreed. “Are you allergic to anything?”

 

Piko pretended to think hard for a second, then concluded, “no, not as far as I know.” Len grinned and, if only habitually, picked up his mug to down all its contents in one go.

 

A little too late, he remembered that he had chosen to drink coffee instead of his usual tea.

 

A little later, still, he realised that it was _Piko’s_ coffee, which tasted like goddamn _charcoal_.

 

(But apparently, his face throughout it all had been so funny that Piko ended up collapsing on the floor with laughter.)

 


End file.
